Dusty Roads

I once lived in a house of wood and stone 
the walls were paper and I was in the middle
being alone
Fenced in by words and the what might happen
fear was a guest and came over often
Winter was a whistle and a wonder of 
beautiful frozen freedom
It always looks different when you're on
the inside freezing
Words were a game, secrets were hidden
I was young 
Guardians weren't looking
I fell and the fall was so loud, damage
unmistakeable
But angels were too busy with their
chaos at their own boardroom table
I slipped through the intangible net
living by just breathing and that's 
what happened when no one paid attention
Summer was a haunted scent full of roses
that begged to be taken but their thorns
were too sharp and left my hands bleeding
and shaking
Forsaken in sunlight, just another wild rebel child
with a hungry heart still beating
Small like a whisper and simply
disappearing
I just wanted you to see me but those
dusty roads left us wanting
left you choking 
Seven walking the same foot carved path
Divine intervention would separate them

Goth

her lips the color of a bruise
she takes imaginary sky walks 
has roadside conversations with 
strangers about the things we lock
inside ourselves for too long
like how cemeteries are far more
sad in December and you hold 
your breath a little deeper 
when you walk by

but pain is a good thing
she says
reminds you of who you were
who you never want to be
again
and the roses are dying

she believes in every sky
she's ever inhaled
every dream she ever dreamed
every prayer she took time to
pray
she's not running away

she can tell you 
how to end up lonely
but she wouldn't advise it

I give you rain

go on fold the night
but
leave the light on in your eyes
the season of questions are upon us
is it love
the stay or the go
the restless,  jealous
the impossible summer
snow
the careless drift desired
intricate as breath
open doors that wait
to be acknowledged
instead of a rose
I give you rain

wide awake

It's 2:38 in the morning and I'm wide awake dreaming on your pillow
the lamp light is soft but I prefer the light in your eyes
but you're not here so I'll improvise
and tell myself you're somewhere wide awake dreaming of me too

everything we said we'd be has turned into a shadow 
I think we've forgot that time alters all that isn't gold
I'm wide awake sleeping in your sweater
hell, love I'm not even cold

I still know how to make you smile
you still have me in your pretty words
I'm not going anywhere at all

I just want to dream awake for awhile and remember the nights we held each other through
and I recall
the scent of our days like a bottled burgundy Autumn in a bottom drawer somewhere

night talk

on a lilac  scented summer night as
a pink sickle moon sailed overhead we traded
sunlight for Johnnie Walker and star drift
as we drank  you said you were going to
bury your pain, I would be witness

you talked of your brother, how you
loved him, hated him and would hold
grudges for life that only love would 
destroy- brothers for life but deeper
you sighed like you were tired and you 
were too young to carry the world
couldn't carry one more thing
you were your own brand of rebellion

your freedom was built in your driveway
a metal dream, a sky blue '66 Chevrolet Camaro
a radio for company as you sang Summer
Breeze like you were already on the road
far away from this small town and all its 
causes that would only try in vain to rob
you of your youth, your vitality, slow your
pace , drain your soul of any would be dreams

you took the guard rails down that held your
heart together and your mouth shut
you said you thrived on darkness for too long
but only because it was safer and the wind seemed 
softer on your skin at night
you took down your pretense that night
and let me see the real and the raw

ashes rose into the sky as you emptied out
your suitcase full of letters and let their
ransomed, poisoned words burn and fly like night 
kites
we danced around the fire without music or reason

you said you didn't know if you believed in a
heaven, asked if I believed
looking at the most profound, beautiful man I
had ever known
I whispered that yes I did

color of forever

saltines for breakfast
and a gulp of air

sunrise stains her eyes
never touching the core
of her heart
window sweat breaks
and makes a delicate run
for it and
she wonders if forever knows
it doesn't exist on invisible
streets
that are pounded into life 
by the imagination and the
gyration of her poetic pen
she decides that opaque hope
is the color of a forever that
doesn't know it doesn't exist

gray

he says December has him by the throat
the wrinkle in his memory hasn't made her less
it made him slow
the chain of love was broken and his heart
has gotten used to the tint of winter
without her warmth
night jumps his thin skin and he shivers
in his old gray coat
her sewing still tattoo's the cuffs
his heart sinks into a sky of marshmallow
and blue
as he climbs into a time machine 
with a ghost from thirty years ago

pearl

wash  away that dirty game kind
of love dirt away
there's a million ways to love
someone
a million ways to walk away
but sometimes love is just too
good to be
a forever kind of thing

we hold dreams too close
we learn to dance with ghosts
and never know when to let them go
we eat the floor to prove
we are wrong

concrete stings
and everyone's gone home
as we lie in shame in our bed
cause we can't face another
fork in the road

and there are the days 
we just pray
for the rain to wash away
all the disastered bits of
yesterday

there are days 
we stalk the night
and the moon is a pearl
in the middle of the day